Full Photoshop is perhaps a bit unwieldy for simple photo work, but Photoshop Elements cuts it down to just what you need for photos.
As to cropping and resizing, there's cropping, and then there's cropping, and then there's ...
Having more than one way to do it is a great improvement over the "simplified" stuff in most of the programs being pushed.
Cropping and resizing are actually THREE different things, since you can crop to specific linear dimensions, change the pixel resolution to adjust the filesize, and for most commonly used image file formats you can vary the degree of compression to further adjust file size.
You also need to be able to change the "canvas" (background) size independent of changes to the image size if you want to make notes on the picture without defacing the image.
Elements does all these. Many lesser programs only let you pick pre-set changes.
I'll stick with my Photoshop Elements, although I'll probably wait a while for my next upgrade (I'm still on v2.0 and I think v8.0 is out now).